Sun's government sales exec latest to depart

Clark Masters, head of Sun Microsystems' government sales, has become the third high-ranking executive to leave the server and software company in recent weeks.

Masters, leader of Sun's global industry sales organization and president of Sun Microsystems Federal, will retire at the end of June, when Sun's fiscal year ends, according to an internal announcement seen by CNET News.com. Company spokeswoman Stephanie Von Allmen confirmed the departure and said Masters will be replaced by Dan Miller, senior vice president for industry sales.

Masters has "no specific plans" for the future beyond catching up on golf and vacation, he said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "I will take a much needed rest and decide what I want to do next year," he said.

Masters reported to Bob MacRitchie, who until this week was head of Sun's global sales. And Thursday, Sun's top software executive, John Loiacono, took a job leading design software and graphics powerhouse Adobe Systems.

Masters joined Sun from Cray in the 1990s when Sun acquired its 64-processor high-end Unix server design, then called the UE10000. Masters had been executive vice president of the high-end server group until 2004, when newly promoted President Jonathan Schwartz reorganized the server groups and named new managers. Two months later, Masters took over as president of Sun Microsystems Federal.

Times have changed dramatically in recent years for Sun. Lower-end servers, many with x86 processors, now account for three-quarters of Sun's server revenue.

[gparshal]

So what?

Has Wall Street looked into the actual value this man gave to Sun Fed? Was he inspiring his salespeople and looked to for help on large presentations/calls? If not, what's the loss?